Patterns

In July, when my computer crashed I didn't lament the two months of photos and music I hadn't backed up.  Such is the reality of the technological world in which we live.  However, when I learned the files on my external drive were corrupted and wouldn't transfer to my new laptop, I began to worry.  With these odds I should go to Vegas.  Thus began the arduous and costly process of of retrieving my files.  Armed with my raw data on a new external drive, I spent hours importing and sorting my photos only to discover that the majority from the past year have evaporated into the ether.  The biggest heartbreak, my photos from Africa.  It was an amazing trip for many reasons, but in part due to the many joyful hours shooting the wildlife in the Serengeti, children on the beach in Zanzibar, the ancient streets in Stone Town, and the slums of Dar Salaam on a particularly beautiful morning.  Thankfully, this blog has become my virtual scrapbook, and several of the images from the hundreds I snapped still exist.

After hours of sifting through raw data, organizing and labeling my images I was struck by how often I shoot the same subject matter.  There were enough sunsets in the hills and  reflections in the pool to warrant their own categories.  However, another grouping of photos emerged, more silly and less artful, but perhaps behaviorally insightful; self portraits in the dirty sliding glass doors in Palm Springs.